Is there any proof out there that the Earth is really only 6000 (approximately) years old?

Question

One of my friends INSISTS that the Earth is only 6000 years old and has never given me one fact to support his belief. If anybody can let me see some method to the madness it would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

There is a lot of overwhelming evidence that the Earth is billions of years old.

1) Radioactive dating of rocks, using a wide variety of radioisotopes with very different decay methods and very different methods for dating the rocks show that the very oldest rocks are Earth are about 3.9 billion years old. This does not establish the age of the Earth, but it establihes a "lower limit,", that is to say the Earth is at least 3.9 billion years old. The oldest moon rocks brought back by astronauts dated to about 4.3 billion years. These rock ages indicate how long ago the rocks became solid. Since we assume that the Earth and moon formed at about the same time and that both were molten when initially formed, scientists have set the age of the Earth (and moon and the entire solar system) to be about 4.5 billion years.

2) Our study of the rate at which mountain ranges are built and destroyed, the rate at which material is deposited in the ocean from the world's rivers, and the rate at which the layers of rocks on Earth's surface build up establish a minimum age of Earth that must be a few billion years.

3) The salinity of the oceans (the density of salt in ocean water) is caused by salts being carried to the oceans by rivers. The rate at which this is currently happening can be determined, and by extrapolating this information backwards again suggest the Earth must be at least several hundred million years old.

4) The diversity of life on Earth and the rate at which mutations occur in each generation of organisms requires that life has existed on Earth for at least 3 billion years.

The 6000 years (the Young Earth) is based on adding up the ages of the patriarchs in the Old Testament of the Bible. This is a Creationist argument which insists on an absolutely literal interpretation of the Bible, but has absolutely no scientific support. Many Christians who belive the Bible is a guidebook for faith and that many of the stories (especially in the Old Testament) are allegories and simplified descriptions of creation given by God to a "young human race" that was not yet ready for the concept of billions of years (for example, how do you explain the formation of the Earth to a four year old child?) have no problem accepting the scientifically consistent data.

Answer 2

Do you really think that there is an equation with three variables that can describe everything that has happened to every variety of bacteria for even the last 6,000 years. Do you understand that when a math problem has ten million variables that you cannot even set up an equation, and that a simple equation that ignores 99.999% of the variables involved will not give an accurate answer.

Answer 3

Part of the light in our own Milky Way galaxy is coming from stars and clusters nearly 100,000 light years away.

Some of the light from our OWN galaxy has been travelling toward us for nearly 100,000 years. When you look at the stars, you are seeing a time-illusion of points of light, most of which are far older than 6,000 years.

The wooly mammoth died out 10,000 year ago, during the last ice age, and we've still got frozen meat from one in Siberia!

When the explorers got to Australia in the 1700's, there were only TWO placental mammals there -- man (the aboriginal Australians) and the dingo. Man brought his dog WITH HIM from what is now Pakistan AT LEAST 15,000 years ago.

In WInd Cave National Monument near Hot Springs South Dakota there is a stripe of rock called "bacon" because it looks like a piece of bacon. It has grown because of mineral water deposits drying on it and increasing its size --over the last 100,000 years!

Diamonds take millions of years to form, not just 6,000 years.

There is no physical evidence whatsoever on earth or in astronomy to support the notion that the universe was formed so recently. None.

Answer 4

webbrowczar is correct the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, life on earth was believed to have started approximately 1 billion years ago. your buddy is only off by about 994,000,000 years... not too bad

Answer 5

Only the Bible. But, all scientific contradicts it including age of earth (4.5 billion yrs), fossils, carbon dating, evolution, etc. In fact, I believe there is plenty of human evidence from older cultures from more than 6,000 yrs ago including skeletons, tools, cave drawings, etc.

Answer 6

the earth is approximately 4.5billion years old just go to google .com and type what is the age of the earth. a ton of websites will show and prove the age of the earth. your friend is not to smart.

Answer 7

hmm, the earth is a lot older then 6000 years, the oldest dinosaur fossil found so far is estimated at 95.5 million years...

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/news/Oldestduckbill.shtml

Answer 8

Not to my knowledge....considering fossils have been found that are millions of years old my guess is:

Your friend is giving you a hard time.

Answer 9

Genesis

Answer 10

No! God is faith, science is real.